GETTING GREENER
SUSTAINABILITY
spreading the word. The BBC has RDF West’s Shop Well for the Planet in this space; Channel 4’s Grand Designs, from Fremantle’s Naked has been praised for showing use of recycled materials. Eco- friendly behaviour is increasingly being knitted into popular programming. Even Jeremy Clarkson’s softening views about climate change have been shown during Amazon hit Clarkson’s Farm, from Expectation. As The Handmaid’s Tale screen writer Dorothy Fortenberry has said, “If you’re making a story about anything, in any place, and you don’t have climate change in it, that’s a science-fiction story.” Sky medical drama Temple, from Hera
Pictures, took a pro-active approach to include themes of climate change in Season 2, which launched late last year. “We’ve included a continuous drum beat of sustainability and climate change themes in a really natural and authentic way that adds to the overall narrative and enjoyment of the audience,” says Gabriel Silver, Director of Commissioning for Drama, Sky Studios.
Dramatic reductions Drama production has some of the biggest
physical production challenges around emissions. At Carnival Films, head of production Charlotte Ashby has been a leading force behind the development of a Green is Universal production toolkit, which is used across the Universal International Studios group. The toolkit, which includes guidelines, start-up slides and templates, is aligned with albert and shared with the industry through Creative England. The approach helped the team to achieve albert certification for both season 5 of The Last Kingdom and new BBC drama Dodger. Finding someone to own responsibility
for sustainable production values is central to lessening impacts. Ashby says that there’s an industry move to create sustainability supervisors, very much like Covid supervisors, “not a very junior member of the team, but someone who can have a conversation with people at a head of department level.” She muses over whether resources that have been used for Covid management, might now be re-routed. On lower budget productions, this raises
issues for staffing. At Picture Zero, Smith notes that production managers already have a lot on their plate. “We need to recognise that we’re adding a huge workload…
..There may well be an opportunity for a production company to get a
THE B CORP ROAD
B Corp certification measures a company’s whole social and environmental impact. B Corp companies are part of an international network. There’s a yearly fee and status needs to be renewed every three years. So far, B Corps are thin on the ground in the UK TV industry. Vfx outfit Dupe qualified in 2020 and Blue Zoo Productions in 2021. Facility Coffee + TV is also accredited. Achieving B Corp status circles around a 200 entries questionnaire which is revisited until the organisation gets a qualifying score. It can take a while. Coffee + TV ceo and co-founder Derek Moore says, “It’s quite daunting, you have to toughen up and attack it with positivity.” Coffee + TV used a consultant to help them break down the tasks. For a facility, workflow is the nub of the issue when it comes to environmental impact. For Coffee +TV, Moore reckons
that computing power and heat accounts for around 80 per cent of emissions. The latest tech is likely to be the greenest tech, but recycling old kit in a green way is vital. Another basic is using a green energy supplier, while ensuring you’re not greenwashed. It’s vital for the whole team to be on board. All staff and freelancers at Coffee + TV must use a renewables energy supplier at home; the company will make up any difference in cost. Amongst other initiatives, staff chipped in on a Slack channel which saw employees uniting over environmental challenges, such as eliminating single use plastic. The result of all the hard work, apart from a head start on mandatory emission reductions, is a happier staff. And Moore believes that it’s grown his bottom line. “You win more from clients who care and we’ve had interesting industry exposure.”
Spring 2022
televisual.com
39
Coffee & TV’s work for Betfair
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